The Witness may have taken Jonathan Blow seven years to make, but it looks to be recouping its development costs in a fraction of that time.

The game, which has been critically acclaimed for its heady mix of maze-like puzzles and Myst-esque island exploration, came out last week, but has almost overtaken the sales of Blow’s iconic time-twisting platformer Braid already.

“It's hard to talk about numbers without breaking NDAs, but The Witness is on track to sell more in a week than Braid sold in its first year, and Braid was a hit indie game,” Blow tweeted.

“Which is not to be too money-oriented, it's just great that we'll be able to make the next game at a comparable budget level (maybe bigger, we'll see!)”

Blow added that he has plans for a follow-up title – although he expects it to reach the light of day far quicker.

Unfortunately, The Witness hasn’t just been popular among paying players; it’s also found “success” with illegal downloaders. Blow expressed his worry that the impact of piracy could affect the creation of his next game.

“It seems The Witness is the #1 game on a certain popular torrent site,” he revealed.

“Unfortunately this will not help us afford to make another game! I'm glad that a lot more people will be experiencing the game! But I also want to be able to make another comparable game next! Just sayin'.

“By the way, we can tell whether streamers are running a legit copy of the game or a pirated one. I just saw a streamer with 3 million views.”